ELUSIVE JUSTICE

ELUSIVE JUSTICE
The Gujarat communal riots of 2002, in which nearly 1500 innocent Muslims were killed by mobs across the state, has been the subject of many reports and analyses over the last 10 years. The continuous denial of justice to minorities and negligible healing measures for survivors had prompted the Supreme Court to portray Gujarat Chief minister Narendra Modi as modern ‘Nero’. “The 2002 violence against Muslims in Gujarat persists as a dark blot on India’s reputation for religious equality,” said Meenakshi Ganguly, South Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “Instead of prosecuting senior state and police officials implicated in the atrocities, the Gujarat authorities have engaged in denial and obstruction of justice.”
The riots have been scrutinised continuously for the past decade by the media, courts, NGOs and the common man. This apocalyptic event have kept NGOs on their toes to undertake various activities either as an academic exercise or as a genuine attempt to understand what caused the whole tragedy. A Large number of them have come up with the answers that suggest that riots were the result of deliberate acts of omission and commission by politicians, bureaucrats and policemen. The anti-Muslim upsurge was not so much the result of failure of governance as of the wish of state's politicians to reap rich political harvest from the riots.
The tone, tenor and thrust of Modi's response to the riots have been highly questionable. Till date he refuses to apologise for the incident which has cost him an international ire and suspended US visa, but earned him local fame. He managed to install himself as the metaphor for Gujrat & Gujrati pride among the hard working and highly entrepreneurial community. He has asserted himself in the public sphere in a paradoxical manner. Not only has he personalised politics in Gujarat but he also projected himself as the spokesman of all Gujaratis. The obvious aim of this strategy was to get electoral dividends through mobilization of Hindus on communal lines which seems to have worked for him. The most striking aspect of this Modi’s “success story” lies in the marginalisation of freedom. The supporters of Modi admitted it candidly the last time they voted for him in 2007. A CSDS survey of early November 2007 showed that 34 per cent of the interviewees (and among them 37 per cent of BJP voters) considered that Modi’s style was “dictatorial”. This tells us something about the state of democracy in Gujarat, a place where the consensus of Beijing (that Modi visited recently) applies more than anywhere else in India: economic growth prevails above liberty.

But their lies a glimmer of hope. Unlike any other violent episode in India's recent history, Gujarat 2002 tested the strength and resilience of many of our democratic institutions to the fullest. The National Human Rights Commission, Supreme Court, and the National Commission for Minorities. Each came forward and acted. There were many laudable instances of police officers enforcing the law very much against the wishes of their political masters. Some of them now suspended still carry on the battle against Modi. Modi’s popular stand of development does not stand ground where many riot victims are still marganilised and ghettoed in fear. Social equality and justice evades them. The state has not given Muslim victims and their kin the compensation to which they were entitled to. The central help & scholarship for minorities has been stalled by the state government. Justice still eludes the victims of Gujarat. And without justice, we cannot move on and no amount of development or ‘sadhbhavna’ will add the much needed shine required to paint the tainted leader of Gujrat in order to occupy the center stage.